Quero
by AuroraExecution
Summary: Harry tries to search for the spirit of Quidditch, but no one seems to have what he's looking for.


**Notes:** Thank you to tigersilver for being just plain awesome. Amazing fic writing aside, she's some odd but wonderful combination of beta, cheerleader, and friend, and it was her encouragement that led to this being posted at all. (By the way, random pimping, but everyone should go read her stuff. It's very in character, even when she's doing happy snarky fluff.)

Just one other thing--I categorized it as psychological, but it's not the angsty type of psychological. It's just Harry thinks a lot.

Oh, and Quero is Latin for "I seek", much like Crucio is Latin for "I crucify". By the way, someone on a different site pointed this out to me, but the standard classical Latin verb is actually "quaero", and "quero" (which I chose because I thought it looked nice...) is the vulgar Latin version. Also, thank you to Jhoy for catching the typo in paragraph 3 for me.

* * *

**Quero**

For three years after the war, including the year he spent back at school, Harry never touched a Snitch. He had gone to games, at Hogwarts at least, partly to cheer on Gryffindor House, partly to lose himself in the game, and, somehow, a little bit just to watch people fly. More than anything, at that time, he had wanted to see the carefree swirling of players on brooms, high in the air, eyes bright with confidence and anticipation. It was how Quidditch had always been, what Quidditch _was_.

It was strange, but he had never found it in anyone again.

The team had asked, of course, if Harry wanted to come back as a Seeker in his repeat year of school, but he had refused. Ginny was more than brilliant at the job, and wanted it more than he did anyway. Deserved it more, too. It had surprised him, though, that Malfoy had also not returned, which was made obvious only after the first game (Gryffindor against Slytherin) had already begun.

Malfoy, in fact, had mostly been his old, obnoxious self, if somewhat more subdued. They argued occasionally (if half-heartedly) in the hallways, almost just for appearances, really. As if an end to the Malfoy-Potter feud would bring home absolutely and completely the fact that the war had actually happened.

But it had, and Harry saw it, especially in the faces of the haunted, no-longer vibrant Quidditch players, who moved sluggishly through the air with haggard gazes. Harry searched and searched, the entire year he was finishing school, but no one had the fire in them anymore. And Malfoy, who was the only one Harry thought might still have a spark, did not play a single game.

Not that Harry stopped flying; he simply did it alone, at night, even knowing flying around would never be the same as the roar and spirit and chaos of Quidditch. Yet, Harry needed to fly, at the very least, even if he could never quite bring himself to play anymore. Not even offhand games with his roommates, not practice Seeking with Ginny, not even just going after the Snitch himself for a while when he was flying. He knew he no longer had the spark, not after the war, and he could not bear to enter the pitch without any spirit.

And for two years after he left Hogwarts, he made himself too busy to think about Quidditch anyway. He was training to be an Auror, taking tests, going on practice missions, filling out paperwork, learning new spells, and studying basic potions and healing. It left no time for flying, much less Quidditch.

At the end of two years, though, he found himself in a secure place as a junior Auror. He had a steady job now, and no need to constantly be studying. Almost naturally, his mind turned back to flying.

This time, however, he changed his tactic. Out of all the people out there, there _had_ to be someone with what Harry was looking for. Someone had to have at least rediscovered the primal, untamable inferno that was the essence of Quidditch.

He found himself disappointed. All the players on all the Quidditch teams Harry ever saw—almost all the players had returned to normal life, and played good, solid Quidditch, but none of them had quite the quality he was seeking. And while he searched in players of all sorts in all kinds of venues, he also began a private search.

For another three years, Harry challenged everyone he could find to Seeker's matches, though none ever came close to beating him, or even showing him the competitive blaze he wanted to see. It became a gnawing obsession, and it was all he did or thought about outside of work. While Oliver and Ginny were both playing professionally, neither of them burned in a white-hot flame when they flew. After that, he moved through all his friends who had any competence in Seeking, and then on to complete strangers. People played him, too, just because he was the Savior, and they liked to obey him. He hated that that was the reason, but his need to rediscover the lost fire of Quidditch was stronger.

Hermione confronted him one day, finally. _What are you actually looking for?_ she asked him, but he no longer knew. So she switched to asking, _who had you seen it in strongest before?_ And he did not need to ask what she meant by before. He knew the answer.

_Malfoy_.

Although Malfoy had never won against him, it was always Malfoy whose actual Seeking was closest in skill to his own. Even if Malfoy's method was completely and totally different, made up of brute force, sly tactics, and distractions—even then, it was Malfoy who always had flown with the brightest flame Harry had ever remembered seeing.

But Malfoy had withdrawn after graduating, gone to training and become a Ministry worker. Harry sent him an interoffice memo, asking the prat as politely as possible if he would face Harry in a Seeker's match. Knowing Malfoy's old temperament, he also added a slight taunt at the end.

Harry was utterly galled when Malfoy's response came: _no, you stupid prat_.

Now that Harry had the idea, though, he was loath to let it go. And he had finally remembered the exact way Malfoy had _burned_ as he flew, way back when, and Harry knew it was the fire he had wanted to find for so long. So he took every opportunity to badger and bribe his way to Malfoy's acquiescence. Harry alternated between bringing the git coffee and leaving him memos with self-replication charms on them. When that gave no response, Harry felt himself go hot with indignation, even as he felt the first flare of excitement in a long time.

Of course, Malfoy deserved nothing but the best pestering, so Harry came up with all sorts of ingenious plans: playing jokes on Malfoy, sending him random quirky gifts, riling him up with taunts and sneers. Somehow nothing seemed to get to Malfoy, even if Harry had always been able to do it before. After weeks of harassment, finally, _finally_, Harry figured out exactly what to do. All he needed was to make Malfoy desire that heat and light as much as Harry did.

When Malfoy came to work one morning, he found an expensive-looking box on his desk, inside of which sat a beautifully-crafted Golden Snitch. He tossed it in the air with an amused smile at Harry's odd antics, but almost immediately narrowed his eyes and fell into a scowl. The Snitch must have been some sort of defect, or a beginner's practice toy, because it careened about drunkenly and rather sluggishly, the speed far below any Snitch used for Quidditch games by players who were above the age of four. Malfoy could catch it while walking, and he did so, slamming the door petulantly on his way out.

And that was how Malfoy finally gave in.

So, a lovely spring day found the two once-enemies floating serenely above a lawn, staring in silence between them. After an interminable space, Malfoy finally shrugged nonchalantly, and began flying at medium speed in a seemingly arbitrary direction. Harry narrowed his eyes. Malfoy was far, _far_ too clever to be so obvious.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of gold…in the complete opposite direction Malfoy was going.

Except Malfoy was no longer going that direction. The git had, while Harry was puzzling everything out, flipped all the way forward and was now hurtling upside-down in the correct direction to catch the Snitch. Harry cursed and started speeding forward on his broom.

The Snitch practically Apparated around the magically-contained area, and Malfoy flew like the same blond demon Harry had always known—no holds barred, all stops pulled, using every single dirty, low tactic in the book.

And Harry _loved_ it.

He could see the shine in Malfoy's eye, even when the rest of the blond was just a blur. It was _Malfoy's_ fire that he'd been seeking, and that was why he had never seen it in anyone else. All along, he was just looking for Malfoy, his equal and opposite, the one person who was neither above nor below him, the one person who had never let the war steal away who he was. _This_, Harry thought, _this is flying_.

They sped neck and neck, shoulder to shoulder, brooms almost completely aligned. It was almost like the world was speeding past, and only he and Malfoy were caught in this single, still moment.

It took him a second to realize Malfoy had stopped flying beside him and was doubling back. Harry squinted over, and caught sight of the gold flutter through Malfoy's fingers.

Harry had lost track of the Snitch. In his joy at finally, _finally_ finding the glorious conflagration that was Quidditch, and the very spirit of the game, Harry had forgotten all about catching Snitches or actually concentrating on playing. Even though it was the first time he had ever lost to Malfoy, Harry felt himself breaking into a smile. He had found what he was _really_ Seeking anyway.

"That was brilliant, Malfoy," he said, surprised at the lack of venom in his own voice.

"Why, thank you, Potter," Malfoy responded with a smug, smug smirk. "What's got your panties in such a twist anyway? Didn't think you were one for reliving old school feuds." But not even Malfoy's sarcasm could break through the shield of sunshine radiating from every pore in Harry's body as they landed on the soft grass below.

"No," Harry replied, feeling generous, and a little like he wanted to hug Draco (which he could not quite convince himself was a completely absurd idea), "Thank _you_." He barely paused before asking bluntly, "Care to join me for dinner, Malfoy?"

"Possibly."

"We can go somewhere nice," Harry forged ahead, knowing the prat too well. "You can pick the place, you git, so you won't spend the night whinging at me."

Malfoy had the audacity to grin at this statement. "You know me best, Scarhead. Not that I trust your judgment of cuisine anyway."

But Harry was too pleased to mind the bickering.

After all, as a Seeker, the point was to catch something particularly evasive.

Luckily, Malfoy was there to do it for him.


End file.
